Moments of Clarity

I was going through a pile of digital images on my phone and computer recently to decide on a few that should be printed, and came across this shot of Jack and I at the end of another session on the Onondaga Cutoff back in 2021.

This was a snapshot, likely by Rich W., and I think it is symbolic of quite a bit in life these days.  This is a really fun image, lighthearted and full of joy, and yet it was in a long line other images and had faded from memory.  Jack and I of course go way back, as is known by most readers of this blog and fans of the OC, but since I am the one taking most of the photos there are not many that include both of us having a great time together.  

Finding reminders of moments like this one bring clarity to the present moment, too, in a way that only reflection can.  Everything now is a sum of all that has been, but it's also greater than that, because it's real and full of promise.  

As this year draws to its close it is important that we dig around in our collective memory for images like this.  Whether photos or videos or moments in our minds take that spot for you matters less than the fact that they exist, for all of us.  What a blessing to have such moments!  And what a privilege to be able to remember them, reflect on them, smile with them.  Enjoy your moments, and may the best be yet to come!

Travels Near and Far

 October and November are some great months to be trackside, anywhere in the United States - perhaps anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.  While model railroading is a year-round hobby, there is something about being outdoors in the fall that really calls me - colors and light change and the images we can make are otherworldly.  

Even out in my favorite desert, that is the case.

550 automatics, west of Solitude, UT - 2022

Thanks to a generous invite from Mark Hemphill, noted photographer and author, I was again able to make plans to fly to Salt Lake City and spend time with him in the deserts where he made the images that first inspired me to learn more of western railroads in the early 1980's.  

Woodside UT with Amtrak #6, November 2022

There's just no way to make images like this in most places of the world, and in nearly all cases you can't even make similar images anywhere else.  

Sunset at Solitude, UT, November 2022

BNSF Provo-Denver manifest along Grassy Trail Creek, November 2022

Making time for travels like these is difficult, and travel is never inexpensive, but the results are singularly possible only because the trip gets made.  Sometimes against considerable odds, too, but isn't that how we grow?  Nothing gets better or is made stronger through convenience or lack of effort.  Everything is possible if we take action, mindfully, methodically, steadily.  Time for reflection is needed too but make no mistake: action speaks louder than words or thoughts.  

What an amazing year 2022 is shaping up to be!

Guest Operators - Including a Special Guest

Guest operations are a great experience for both visitors and hosts alike.  The Onondaga Cutoff hosted a session as part of a group of sessions on five railroads in one weekend here in Northwestern New Jersey in October, and it was a great honor to be able to join the fun!  We worked hard to get the railroad ready - and it was worth it.  

We hosted along with Perry Squier, Ted Pamprin, Jerry Dziedzic, and Tony Koester - four legendary layouts, and the OC.  I am still amazed at the good fortune of living in this same area as these railroads!  

The first session Saturday was at Jerry's, and here Doug Tagsold and Dustin Jeffers work the big NJ Zinc Mill in Franklin, NJ on Jerry's NYS&W/L&HR.  

Later that afternoon, the crowd came to the OC, and we got right into it.

Guest sessions work best with helpers on hand who know the railroad well, regulars that can be trusted as guides for the visiting operators.  Sometimes guests jump right in and this group not only jumped in but also caught on very quickly - it was a great session!

Mike Burgett, whose amazing C&O layout was a railroad on which I operated in the spring of 2022, sat in as the Conrail Mohawk Dispatcher on the OC.  He worked it well with guidance from Jack T, who as always puts a tremendous amount of effort into making sure the operating plan works and is robust enough to hold up through the typical ebbs and flows of a session.

An honored guest this time as well as Eric White, who attended with his wife and son.  Eric was recently promoted to be the Editor of Model Railroader magazine - a key role not just at Kalmbach but in the hobby in general - and he has now attended a session on the Onondaga Cutoff.  Awesome!

It has been a thrilling and fascinating start to the fall in 2022, and things are continuing on a rapid pace.  Maintaining balance is going to be a key not just this year but as life goes on and that is something I will explore more in future posts and creative works.  Balancing life, family, career, and an immersive hobby is a wonderful privilege and a huge responsibility at the same time.  

The best for all of these is yet to come!

First Impressions Matter

All the new HVAC work in October created quite a mess in the layout entrance.  A whole new electrical service was needed, and the panel created an unsightly entrance to the layout.  Having seen a number of world-class railroads, I know the Onondaga Cutoff needs a nice initial impression to make visitors and regulars feel comfortable and to present a seamless introduction.  

So, I created a large new forest canopy for the cover to the new panel, which makes the view down the stairs seamless:

Once you come down off the steps to the landing, the view is just as smooth over the new panel.

All of this was hours of pondering and then hours of custom construction, with assistance from DemClams to make all the trees.  But in a push, we got there - and thankfully once again the railroad has a seamless entrance with which it has the best chance to make a great first impression.
 

Another Heritage Unit...NJ TRANSIT 41O1

Heritage has long since caught the imagination of railroad photographers, and thanks to a combination of good fortune, opportunity, timing and ambition I am pleased to report that we have completed another heritage unit - on the 1:1 railroad.   NJ Transit GP40PH-2 41O1 is now in service!  

The engine was in the shop for paint, and based on our success in 2019 I approached management with the idea to do another project for the fleet.  Many others jumped in and handled major parts of the project, notably Rich Wisneski and Russell Sullivan along with the NJT mechanical forces who performed the work and organized the activity.  The results are quite stunning.

The locomotive was cleaned and sandblasted, then received body work and primer.  Paint colors were painstakingly matched with extensive help from the United Railway Historical Society, and applied in-house by NJT crews.  All of this came together in a matter of weeks. 

 I helped locate the stripe, discussing details and measurements, and we got a great result.

This was when Russell Sullivan suddenly came upon an emergency.  Paint was finished on Wednesday September 28th ahead of Saturday October 1 unveiling.  The cab numbers and warning stencils were delivered as decals, but the 4101 (and any Conrail in-house paint job) didn't use a '0' - instead, Conrail's Futura Bold font used a capital O instead of the digit 0.  Our decals came as 4101, not 41O1, due to a typo at the factory.

36 hours to go and we had the wrong font.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, the factory is in central PA, and Reidler Decal answered our desperate call at 7 p.m.  Our rep talked to her boss and sure enough, they could help - as long as we could pick it up.   And so I volunteered to drive out to the factory Friday morning, pick up new decals, and drive them back to NJ to Rich, who would then take them down to the shop for a Friday night install ahead of the Saturday show.  WHEW!

Both photos above by Russell Sullivan.

We did it!

The next day, the annual NJT Rail Operations Family Day celebration, was the unveiling and despite the rain, it was a career highlight, much like 4109 was in 2019.

Me, Rich Wisneski, Russell Sullivan - the team that worked with mechanical to get this one over the hump.

Me again, this time with the Deputy GM-Mechanical Fred Chidester, President Kevin Corbitt, Rich Wisneski, and Kevin's wife who came to see the freshly-painted locomotive as well.

For an infrastructure guy like me to have career highlights in mechanical with heritage units is a dream come true.  41O1 will join the fleet and bring smiles where it goes, honoring men and women who made the company work from the start against all odds.  

And my family was there to see this again - the home where my life starts and is sustained with Kristen and DemClams was able to be here for this too.  And Russell got a great photo of us with the 4109 on October 1, still looking great after 3 years:  4109 was my original goal with the program, image thanks again to Russell.

Stuff like this is a firm reminder of how things can still get better, and how we can come together if we choose to focus on things that bring us together!

New HVAC for the OC

Multiple projects ongoing, and plenty of work leads to a variety of improvements.    

First, a major systems upgrade is complete in working ductless HVAC on the house, including the layout space. The Onondaga Cutoff will finally be more comfortable mid summer! And in addition, the ductless AC also works as a heat pump meaning that we will not be as chilly mid-winter. Major thanks to go Tom Schmieder for all his generous help during such a busy time.

Tom is skilled with all things mechanical, also carpentry, electrical, plumbing...all the sorts of things I can slide by with Tom does better, with patience and confidence.  First we built a frame to block the window, and support the new HVAC unit over the layout.  The poor Island Yard has been under a lot of construction!

Careful measurement and Tom's talents gave us a near perfect fit.  We put it up, I gave it a coat of paint, and we were set for installation.

Major change!  And now time for the contractors to do their thing:

Just like that, the OC is now permanently climate controlled.  No more space heaters, or window units.  We did the whole house - what a major, monumental upgrade.  And, this was one of four or five huge activities in the last few weeks!

More to come!

Major Upgrades - Long Time Planned

 It's been a busy start the autumn season in life and on the layout.  But the Onondaga Cutoff is better for the effort, in two major ways.  

First, with the help of friend Paul T., I finally made the plunge and updated the layout PC from Windows 8.1, which has been less stable than I liked for years, to Windows 10.  This involved a whole evening of downloading and uploading, installing and failing, then using Google to find solutions to the issues and work through them.  In the end, the computer is working as intended and all applications were seamlessly transferred.  A real test will be the next operating session!

The other major project came about with a design question from Jack on the Island, and our reevaluation pointed us in the direction of some major changes to the back three tracks, to better accommodate locomotive manipulations.  The major goal was to make room to store Amtrak consists at the back end of the yard, and allow new crossover capability so they could leave the yard with equipment ahead on the same track.  

It is always best to test fit components and get a good feel for major changes like this.  We want to envision it, check that twice, then lay it out and measure 4 times.  No kidding!  Re-doing work because of an incorrectly remembered measurement is frustrating and time consuming.  So, I purchased the components first (two #6 turnouts, a #6 double-slip switch, and switch machines) which allowed me to mock up the whole area.  As it turned out the new bumper tracks were too close, so we moved the whole assembly away from the bumpers to ensure proper fit for Amtrak.  

The hardest part of these projects is the demo.  To my frustration I realized I would need to remove about 2 feet of ballasted track, and while that is far less than it could have been, it was still a lot.  Thankfully by moving slowly and steadily with the putty knife, I was able to save all the track that was glued down, even that part that was ballasted.  

After cleaning up it was time to script out the new track design and make it fit.  Working from the mandatory length of the back tracks I spaced out the new switches to fit and laid that route first, allowing it to cure overnight before starting the next ones.  The next night, I was able to lay the remainder of the yard and weight it for curing.  I installed new feeders and made all the soldier joints with the resistance soldering machine, still one of the best investments for anything larger than a small layout!

After weathering, we have a great-looking area, and this opens the door finally to making the final scenery here a reality.  This will model a locomotive servicing area including service platforms as per prototype engine yards.  

Given the lack of roadbed, I decided to use leftover Masonite hardboard cut into thin strips and scored to suggest concrete.  The height is nearly perfect for a rail-height platform.  I am curious to see how it will handle ballast installation with so much moisture during curing - we will see.

A quick test fit shows the stunning visual change that platforms will have for the Island.  

Satisfied with the fit, I found some old house paint that worked perfectly for worn concrete, which will need some weathering to blend in.  I made the rest of them and dropped them into place.

With all platforms temporarily installed we have a really snappy-looking area.  They're not perfect, of course, and look a bit clunky without ballast.  But that will happen in a few days.  Soon we will add a few details - and be ready for service.  The Island is coming to life!